Brio
3.13.14
Cultural Clash: Audience Participation
The manners that society considers to be essential for being a polite audience is very different in the East compared to the West. This can be seen when Mark goes to a party and is struck with curiosity and amusement when he plays his cello when the guests did the opposite of what is considered polite in his culture. They began to talk amongst themselves. When Mark stopped, because he thought they didn't like it, asked him to keep going. "Right away they resumed their conversations, the children laughed and played with the case, and Fu Manchu insisted an arm wrestle with the third brother" (123). This scene is humorous because although, Mark thinks that the guests are seeming unbelievevly rude, in actuality, they are showing their enjoyment through their culture's display of appreciation. The reason being is that for the majority of Chinese who are peasants and laborers, music is enjoyed as a sort of background entertainment and is intended as an accompaniment, according to one of Mark's Chinese friends. "Renao is the Chinese word for good fun, the kind you might have at an amusement park in American and noise and movement are essential to it" (123). Still more interesting, the Chinese manners for listening to someone sing is different their manners for live instrumentals. When Mark is asked to sing, they become very focussed and listen intently. This variation of attentiveness seems to be universal yet the differences seem to allow for humor in a lot of places in this book.
Another example of when Mark noticed Renao is during a banquet hosted by the Provincial Foreign Affairs Bureau. During this banquet, an official delivered a speech that lasted about four hours. In this speech, all of the Westerners were very irritated with the long and boring meeting, while the Chinese were content with how they listened to the meeting. "The Chinese, by necessity, increased their endurance manyfold by making listening optional. During the meetings, they dose, get up and stretch or walk around, and in general do not pretend to pay attention. This does not offend the speaker, who, in general, does not pretend to be interested in what he or she is saying" (163).
ReplyDelete